The background description provided here is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Substrate processing systems may be used to perform deposition and/or etching of film on a substrate. Substrate processing systems typically include a processing chamber with a substrate support such as a pedestal, an electrostatic chuck, a plate, etc. A substrate such as a semiconductor wafer may be arranged on the substrate support. In chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or atomic layer deposition (ALD) processes, a gas mixture including one or more precursors may be introduced into the processing chamber to deposit a film on the substrate. In some substrate processing systems, radio frequency (RF) plasma may be used to activate chemical reactions.
Some of the gas precursors are generated by vaporizing a liquid. The approach is often used for ALD deposition such as silicon oxide deposition. However, this approach typically has high defect counts due to incomplete vaporization of the liquid and higher running costs because pulsed liquid flow is often difficult to control.